"The super honeymoon of Fred Demmler and Alexander James" - Review

"The super honeymoon of Fred Demmler and Alexander James" is an extraordinary documentary of almost 40 minutes, which punctually recounts a trip to Europe, in the years when the First World War breaks out.
Of course, this is not a journey for any fictional character, but one that was made by Fred Demmier, a young portrait artist trained in Boston, and the nephew of writer Henry James, Alexander James. We are talking about a trip foiled by the war, which aimed to visit the main museums of Europe.
We hear voice-overs, which read the letters that so efficiently internalize us of those circumstances. Demmler’s letters to his parents in Pittsburgh, the notebooks of journalist Lucien Price from Boston, and correspondence between Hanry James and his nephew. We know the work of London artist Michael Chance, who creates portraits of Demmler with chalk. on sidewalks in various places in London and Rye, and a painting for the film called "Rough Sleeper".
Directed by Charles Kaufmann, the short goes beyond the frustrated journey and explores the social realities of pre-war London society. Especially in the huge cracks between aristocracy and poverty. The high society affected by the first part of a century marked by two world wars and conflicts of all kinds.
It has testimonies from specialists of all kinds and is interesting even for those who are not interested in the history of the two central characters. Kaufmann himself explains his work in this way.

"Intuiting a unique and unpublished story, I started working on this project in 2009 when a friend showed me a letter written to her aunt by the famous novelist Henry James. That discovery led me to years of research at Harvard’s Houghton Library on the letters of Henry James and the notebooks of Lucien Price, a Boston journalist and friend of Fred Demmler. "The super honeymoon of Fred Demmler and Alexander James." is a documentary in a series based on this research, which has grown to include letters and paintings contributed by museums, historical societies, educational institutions, private collectors, family members of Fred Demmler and descendants of his friends."